The Board
overseeing the Center for Public Environmental Oversight (CPEO) is pleased to
announce that its Executive Director Lenny Siegel received the Superfund
"Citizen of the Year" award from the United States Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) on July 19, 2011.

"It
is a great honor and pleasure for me to recognize you as a recipient of the
2011 Citizen Excellence in Community Involvement Award. The EPA commends you
for your commitment and dedication to the Mountain View, California community
that is affected by both the Naval Air Station Moffett Field Superfund site and
the Middlefield-Ellis-Whisman (MEW) Study Area," wrote Mathy Stanislaus, the EPA
Assistant Administrator of the Office
of Solid Waste and Emergency Response, the EPA program overseeing the
nation's Superfund site cleanups.

Mathy's
recognition continued, "You serve as a shining example for other communities
faced with the challenges that come with having a hazardous waste site in their
community."

Lenny was
recognized at the 2011 Community
Involvement Training Conference recently concluded in Washington, DC. The
conference brought together more than 450 people from EPA and its federal,
state, tribal, and local partners who plan and implement environmental
community involvement, partnership, stewardship, outreach, and education
programs.

Lenny
lives and works in Mountain View, California. There he has served as Executive
Director of CPEO since 1994, when it was known as CAREER/PRO, a project of the
San Francisco Urban Institute at San Francisco State University. In the 1990s,
he served on the Federal
Facilities Environmental Restoration Dialogue Committee, where he used his
experience at Moffett Field to help design the system of community advisory
boards at contaminated federal facilities. Since then, as a "usual
suspect," he has served on numerous other state and federal advisory
committees, including the National
Dialogue on Military Munitions and the original Defense Science Board Task
Force on Unexploded Ordnance. He has served on three work teams of the Interstate Technology Regulatory Council
(ITRC) and several National Research Council committees dealing with military
environmental issues, and he remains active on the Moffett Field Restoration
Advisory Board.

Peter
Strauss, who attended the award session said, "As a friend and colleague,
I view this as a long-awaited recognition for Lenny, and also for the CPEO
organization. Over the years, I have seen first hand how Lenny, through his
balanced approach and ability to speak to diverse organizations, coupled with
his community organizing skills, has helped countless individuals and
communities to obtain environmental justice and obtain positive outcomes."

"While
this is obviously rewarding for me personally, I also see it as an affirmation
of the environmental community activism which my community is known for. In
Mountain View we have found that an empowered community offers constructive
input, and as a result we are listened to. Our success has not only helped
protect our families from toxic environmental exposures, but it has served as a
national model for community engagement." said Lenny after receiving the
recognition.

Jane
Horton, a resident of the community benefiting from Lenny's contribution, said
of the recognition, "This is awesome and well-deserved. Lenny has worked tirelessly
on local and national environmental issues. I am grateful that Lenny has
persevered in his work with the MEW Site and with other contaminated sites in
Mountain View. He served as a mentor to me when I became aware of the TCE
contamination across the street from my house, and when it was subsequently
discovered that my home was over the contaminated plume and that it needed
remediation, Lenny explained and translated complex issues into pieces that I
could understand."